The U.S. inaugurated The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) to rebuild Western Europe and counter the appeal of communism. Named after Secretary of State George Marshall, the plan ran from 1948-1952 and helped rebuild the economies of Western Europe on a capitalist model. In the fall of 1950, the Intra-European Cooperation for a Better Standard of Living Poster Contest was held throughout Europe whereby artists were encouraged to submit posters that captured the spirit and goals of the Marshall Plan with an emphasis on cooperation and economic recovery as the main theme. Over 10,000 pieces were submitted from Artists from over 13 Marshall Plan countries. The entries were submitted to a jury in Paris comprised of museum curators and other artist and scholars, each representing a different Marshall Plan country. They selected twenty-five winning posters, including this one from Sweden.

The flag of Greece, prominently located in the upper right, reminds us of Greece’s supporting role over sixty years ago to aid the economic recovery of Europe, and links to what is happening to Greece now. It is both ironic and criminal that Germany is the primary obstacle against forgiving or reducing Greece’s debt today, yet Greece-which was one of Germany’s creditors-supported reducing Germany’s debt after WWII. Greece was one of the countries that willingly took part in a deal to help create a stable and prosperous western Europe, despite the war crimes that German occupiers had inflicted just a few years before.

I have held off commenting on the goings-on since my last entry because of the intrigue and utter insanity that characterizes the Greek and European political scene since the historic “NO” vote of July 5th, 2015.

We have seen an apparent betrayal of the Syriza program and of the rhetoric of the government’s position. That is clear.

What we can say is that — under the transparent duress imposed on Greece by the Troika of the EU, ECB, and the IMF — is that, “this is what Disaster Capitalism looks like.”. It it precisely self-determination, sovereignty, and democracy that are under attack. The interests of lenders, investors and profit are prevailing over the will of the people when it comes to those in positions of power.

It is also the case that Greeks apparently do “fetishize” the Euro and desire it more than they they desire the struggles necessary to regain their sovereignty, even in the face of openly-admitted unsustainable austerity, debt, and memoranda.

All political scenaria are still in play in my view, and ideological class warfare is still ongoing. It is also clear that — even Keynesians like Krugman, Stiglitz, and others say — that the economics of the Greek case are NOT the issue as much as the POLITICAL ECONOMY is. It clearly is NOT about economics. This is bigger than Greece — way bigger.

Even in its apparent “betrayal”, Syriza has exposed and opened further cracks in the undemocratic foundations of the European project and those of an EU that is in clear trouble.

Having said that, I still do not have high hopes for an outright success of Syriza transforming the EU into a democratic institution. Sovereignty is a secondary issue at best for them, and for too many Greeks, in my opinion.

We must also recognize the geo-political forces and interests directly and indirectly in play in this scenario, involving the West’s interests in the region and vis-a-vis Russia. These might end up larger variables than meet the eye.

Who — at the end end of the day — are the “extremists”? The communists? The Nazis? The anarchists? Or the capitalist oligarchs?

One thing is clear: this insanity is what “Disaster Capitalism” — not democracy — looks like! So, let’s not be too quick to cast the first stone.

(5) Leo Panich, Socialist Project/The Bullet, The Denouement. I found this useful. But–see this post by Panich criticizing the position on Syriza of Richard Seymour of the blog Lenin’s Tomb, and this response from Seymour.

(6) Christos Laskos, John Milios and Euclid Tsakalotos, via Workers’ Liberty, Communist Dilemmas on the Greek Euro-Crisis: To Exit or Not to Exit? This piece, which I haven’t read carefully enough, is from 2012, but it is interesting partly because it is co-authored by Euclid Tsakalotos, who replaced Varoufakis as the Greek finance minister.

It may be wise to avoid this source for your asset management, because two months later in the same newspaper you discovered that the spread of euro prosperity did not survive into July, “a slowdown in the eurozone’s recovery was confirmed on Thursday [3 July], after the final reading of a poll of purchasing managers hit is lowest level this year”.

As I demonstrated a month ago, the so-called recovery was not “real”, nor brief and fleeting. It has yet to occur. The chart below, up-dated with preliminary statistics for the second quarter of 2014, demonstrates the euro recovery that never was. Of the four largest economies on the euro zone, the “best performer”, that of Germany, is a merger four percent above its level at the beginning of 2008.

And that only starts the bad news. The economies of two countries, Italy and Spain, are at a lower level of GDP than at the depth of the Global Crisis of 2008-2009. For these two countries returning to the lowest point of the worst recession in eighty years would be an improvement. That might be taken as a working definition of “been down so long it looks like up to me“.

The news for national income is bad and for unemployment even worse. The chart below shows the percentage point change in unemployment rates, again compared to the first quarter of 2008. Setting the first quarter of 2008 as zero allows easy visual comparison. For only one country, Germany, is unemployment lower, 5.1% of the labor force now compared to 7.9 at the beginning of 2008.

Among the others, the unemployment rate is 16 percentage points higher in Spain (at 25% of the labor force), six higher in Italy and three in France. Only for Spain do we see improvement, if that word applies to a change from 26.3 to 25.1%.

What is going on in the euro zone? Market economies are supposed to grow, driven by the “animal spirits” of capitalists (to use the term coined by John Maynard Keynes). What is the cause of the stagnation that seems to affect even the Teutonic dynamo? The answer is quite straight-forward and obvious to all those not blinded by ideology — a lack of demand.

Businesses produce things when their owners think those things can be sold. They can be sold domestically to other businesses (capital goods), to households (consumer goods), to the public sector (government demand), or to foreign markets (exports). The austerity policies championed by the German government and enforced on euro zone countries by the European Commission have public expenditure contracting in real terms in most countries.

The chart below tells the public expenditure story. In constant prices, public expenditure in Germany was six percent higher in 2013 than in 2008, and five percent higher in France. Both countries grew compared to 2008, albeit by not very much. In Italy public expenditure was down by 6% and by 5% in Spain. The economies of both countries contracted compared to 2008. There is a lesson from those numbers — don’t cut spending in a recession.

Ratio of public expenditure in 2013 compared to 2008, 4 largest euro economies

(constant prices)

Source: www.oecd.org/statistics.

What of the animal spirits of the private sector? Bad news again, with private investment lower in all four countries in 2013 compared to 2008. The falls are 8% for Germany, 10% for France, a debilitating 27% for Italy, and a disastrous 41% in Spain. As for exports, virtually no change for France and Italy in constant prices (up 2% and down 2%, respectively). Germany exports increased by 10%, sufficient to compensate for the fall in investment and stimulate a bit of growth. But in Spain not even a 20% export increase could raise the economy off rock-bottom in face of the declines in private investment and public expenditure.

Ratio of Private Investment in 2013 compared to 2008, 4 largest euro economies

(constant prices)

Source: www.oecd.org/statistics and www.worldbank.org..

Has recovery come to the largest countries of the eurozone? No, because austerity has depressed public-sector demand. The low growth or decline in public expenditure has lowered private-sector growth expectations, keeping investment low. And except in Germany increases in exports have been less than the contraction in private investment.

Public expenditure down, private investment dismal, and export growth inadequate to keep the total demand for goods and services from falling. What about households (aka “consumers”)? No prizes for figuring out what happens to household expenditure when unemployment continues at a high rate and other sources of demand stagnate.

But, isn’t all this austerity, public and private, the necessary price to pay for running up those huge public debts and budget deficits? That’s a story for another day. I show in chapter 9 of my new book, Economics of the 1%, austerity and slow growth make both debt and deficits worse. Which leads to the one-liner of the euro economies — they suffer from policy-induced stagnation, self-inflicted. Stop the policy sabotage of these economies and growth will return It really is that simple.